A persecution watchdog is sounding the alarm after a Catholic priest was reportedly abducted by the terror group Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Joel Veldkamp, head of international communications at Christian Solidarity International (CSI), told CBN News the Rev. Daniel Alphonsus Afina, 41, was taken June 1, 2025, while traveling from Mubi to Maiduguri. CSI is calling on the Nigerian government to “take urgent action” to secure his release.
Afina, a CSI partner, assisted the organization in serving persecuted Christians in the area, and was potentially targeted due to his Christian faith:
“He operates in an area of Nigeria called Maiduguri,” Veldkamp said. “This is really ground zero for the Boko Haram terrorist movement that’s been terrorizing Christians for almost 15 years now in Nigeria.”
He continued, “[Afina] is actually one of CSI’s partners. He helps us distribute food to people who have survived Boko Haram attacks and who are now displaced. They’ve had to flee their villages and live in camps in the main city of Maiduguri.”
Afina and his convoy were attacked with RPGs and rocket-propelled grenades and another partner was killed during the incursion. The abductors who took the priest forced him to call his bishop and tell him he had been abducted.
“He got to ask the bishop to pray for him,” Veldkamp said, noting no one has heard again from Afina since June 1. “We haven’t heard anything. He’s the 15th or the 16th priest or pastor who’s been kidnapped in Nigeria this year. Sometimes, they’d want ransom money, and other times they’re abducting them in order to kill them, in order to terrorize the Christian community.”
Veldkamp and CSI are urging the Nigerian government to take the situation seriously, for Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to issue a public statement condemning the abduction, and for officials to deploy peacekeeping forces around Maiduguri.
Sadly, though, Veldkamp said the government so often remains silent or does little to stem the tide of chaos and radical Islamic terror. Part of the reason, he said, could be due to complicity.
“We believe that there are figures in the Nigerian security establishment who have links to Boko Haram and who have links to other Islamic terrorist groups operating in Nigeria,” he said.
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As for Afina, Veldkamp also shared that he is a new partner who moved back to Nigeria from Alaska in 2024. He had spent seven years working throughout the U.S. state, but felt called to return to Nigeria, despite the dangers and risks to Christians.
“He made the choice to return to Nigeria to serve his people,” he said. “While he was in Alaska, he was taking special courses in counseling and therapy with the intention of helping Nigerians who have been traumatized by these attacks.”
Persecution continues to be a horrific problem in Nigeria, where nearly half of the population is Christian and the other half is Muslim. Islamic extremism has driven the majority of the killings and chaos, with the northern portion of the nation, which is mostly Muslim, experiencing the most intense anti-Christian sentiment and attacks.
“Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian,” Veldkamp said. “More Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than any other country in the world by far.”
Veldkamp is hoping to see the U.S. place more pressure on the Nigerian government. One such step in that direction would be for the U.S. State Department to once again list Nigeria on its Countries of Particular Concern list, a roster of nations with religious liberty restrictions. The Trump administration added Nigeria before the nation was removed under former President Joe Biden’s tenure.
As CBN News has reported, Nigeria is consistently found by watchdogs to be the most deadly nation for believers.
“We documented almost 10,000 killings of Christians, mostly in the north and middle part of that country,” Isaac Six, the former senior director of advocacy for Global Christian Relief (GCR), told CBN News earlier this year. “And, again, that is systematic violence being perpetrated and led by groups like Boko Haram, and Islamic State West Africa Province, and then other armed groups.”
Ultimately, Isaac said Christians in America need to understand the extent of the terror.
“The church in America really has to hear how horrific some of these stories are,” he said. “It’s not just violence. It’s not just killings. It is brutal atrocities. And, frankly, the church has to wake up to some of this. Only a fraction of believers in America are even aware of what’s happening.”
Other persecution trackers have also extensively documented the severity of the issue. Open Doors’ World Watch List 2025 placed Nigeria in the seventh spot in its rankings of nations where anti-Christian persecution and discrimination are the worst.
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Author: Billy Hallowell
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